A Gift of Deception
by thewrote
Summary: Herah tricks a clueless Blackwall into helping her craft a gift for a certain, special someone. Because Blackwall deserves nice things and I love him! [Cross posted on AO3]


**\- x -**

When the sun finally began its descent, the blinding white of the mountains overrun with shadows until the snow crested tops were the color of her skin, Herah approached the barn that Blackwall had claimed as his own.

She _hadn't_ been staking the barn out, waiting for him to return from an errand that had pulled him away from Skyhold earlier that day. It just so happened that morning Inquisitor business took in her the direction of the small, bustling market that had cropped up in recent months. It was her duty, after all, to check in with the vendors

When he still hadn't returned, she discovered that her afternoon exercises were better when completed in front of the stables. The horses weren't as lively of an audience as Cassandra, but the air was crisper, better for the lungs.

At last, with only a few hours left in the day, and a dwindling list of "errands" she could complete, he returned. It would have been rude, she reasoned, to show up _right_ after he had gotten back, so she waited just out of sight.

This was _not_ a stake out she reminded herself as she hid in the shadows, her shoulders pressed against the still sun-warmed stone.

When she finally made an appearance, a buoyancy worked into her step to appear as if she were on a jog through the courtyard, she made a show of looking surprised to see him hunched over a small fire, a block of wood pressed between his knees.

"Warden Blackwall!" Herah redirected her jog, vaulting through the open barn door with a few strides of her long legs.

"Ah, good evening, Inquisitor!" Blackwall sounded just as surprised as she was pretending to be, though his face was difficult to read, grim as always. He brushed a few wayward strands of hair from his eyes, tucking them into the leather thong that he used to tie back his shoulder length hair. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"I was just on a jog and saw…." She pointed to the fire and smiled, adding a shrug as if this was all just a chance encounter. She could feel herself turning red, the heat spreading from her chest to her cheeks. With a hand flapping to fan herself, she played it off as being overexerted from the run.

He didn't reply, just grunted and turned his attention back to the block of wood in his lap. A knife lay just at his feet, a small smattering of wood shavings marking his progress.

An awkward silence followed, made the more awkward by her unwillingness to leave. She was a hulking presence standing in the door and she could see he was watching her from the corner of his eye. He wanted her to leave, or at least he didn't want her sulking in the shadows.

"I - " Herah began then paused, chewing on her lip as she thought of all the ways she could ask him. Maker, why hadn't she been practicing this during the day?

"Inquisitor?" Good-naturedly, he twisted towards her, an expectant half smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Gathering her courage, she stepped further into the barn, her hands clasped behind her back as she walked.

Something hot unfurled in her belly when he titled his head up to look at her. It was something he always did when they spoke, holding her gaze even as she stood over him. Others looked at her shoulders, her neck, or even at their own feet. Rarely did they have the pluck to look her in the eye, to stretch their neck.

"I was hoping that you could help me with something," she finally said, inviting herself to sit across from him. "I wanted to… I wanted to make something." She gestured with an open hand to the wood work that decorated a workbench in the corner.

This caught his attention and the smile blossomed. He leaned towards her, his face pulled from the shadows and into the orange light of the flames. "What did you have in mind?"

"I'm not sure." She had thought exactly zero part of this all the way through and she tapped a finger against her lips, buying time until she found footing on the next step in her plan. "But I want it to be a gift. A gift for someone very special to me."

"And what does this special someone like?"

Herah pulled her lips into a tight line and tapped furiously. A few seconds later she remembered to blink. It was a bad time to find out that she didn't have any idea what he liked.

The expression on her face must have been obvious. Blackwall chuckled and let the block of wood slip between his knees, his attention earnestly attuned to her. "You haven't a clue, do you?"

It was impossible to pretend the blush was from anything but embarrassment this time. "I haven't a clue what he likes," she confirmed.

Blackwall frowned, his hands clasped between his knees. "Tell me about him."

This was becoming dangerous territory. She schooled her features, donning a mask that suggested she was calm, collected, even a touch disinterested. Chin raised, head titled to the side, as if she were about to describe the characteristics of an ant.

She regarded Blackwall through hooded eyes, responsive to the way he looked leaning towards her, his shoulders uneven to keep away from the heat of the fire. The smile had nearly disappeared, only the corners of his lips holding the ghostly remains of his laugh. Something else had taken over, clouding his eyes and pulling his brows together.

"He is a very skilled fighter," she finally began, breathing her words across the silence that had settled between them. "A noble man who inspires others with fervent passion. I haven't known him long, but he has become very dear to me. I want a token, something to give him, so perhaps he will think of me when he sees it."

Blackwall listened intently, clicking his tongue or nodding along as appropriate, his face scrunched. When she was finished, he leaned back and let out a long, low whistle. "I know who that would be."

"What?" Her mask of disinterest felt tight around her cheeks as she forced a smile. "I don't think you do."

"Yes," he nodded, "sounds very familiar."

"I just gave you a _very_ vague description and it could very well by anyone. Perhaps you're projecting."

He snorted and shook his head, one hand stroking his beard absentmindedly. "I won't tell anyone, Inquisitor. Commander Cullen is a fine man, he would be a fool not to think as highly of you as you do of him."

Herah cut the laugh off before it could escape, catching it as it fizzed on her lips and transforming it into a toothy smile. One day she would tell Cullen about this and she would laugh about it then, but for now she knew that she had been presented a gift of deception.

"Well, if you promise not to tell anyone," she whispered, leaning towards him, winking as if they shared a dastardly secret.

"Your secret is safe with me, and I know exactly what we will make."

 **\- x -**

Herah waited until the moon was visible above the peak of the mountains before whisking through the pitch black courtyard to meet Blackwall. As the Inquisitor she hardly needed to sneak out to see him, but doing so leant weight to his theory that she was making a gift for her military advisor.

In truth, she would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy it, creeping towards the barn on swift feet, cloaked in the shadows as silent as a predator on the hunt.

Blackwall had left the door open, a gap only just wide enough for her to squeeze through. He was positioned as he always was just on the other side, his hair tied into a tight bun, his armor discarded for a leather jerkin and loose fitting breeches. The door closed behind her, though he was careful to keep the hinges from screeching.

This was their fourth night working together. The block of wood had been smoothed and whittled away at until it was finally beginning to take on a vaguely recognizable shape. That shape was a rectangle, but he assured in her time it would be easily recognized as a target shield.

"He won't be able to use this?" Herah asked, not for the first time, but disappointed enough to inquire once more, as if the answer would have changed.

"You haven't the skills to make a proper shield that could stand up to real damage." He smiled apologetically and held a chisel out to her. "He's a military man after all! You can't send him off with a shield that will crack."

She sighed and snatched the tool from his hand. "Very well. A decorative shield it will be."

It made her smile to think of handing Cullen a shield and asking him to hang it in his office.

"And what is this?" he might ask, eyeing her and the shield with equal measures of confusion.

"It's a target shield," she would answer, "hand crafted by myself! I had planned to make it for Blackwall, but the dolt could hardly take a hint and so here we are."

Despite her skill with a knife outside the four walls of the barn, they found that she was irredeemably clumsy when delicacy was required. The chisel felt awkward in her hand, the weight never right, her grip causing her fingers to cramp.

The chisel slipped and a suddenly a chunk of wood was noticeable absent from a corner, giving the shield a lopsided appearance that could only be amended by whittling down the entire piece to adjust the overall size. During the course of correcting her first mistake she made another, and then another. And another.

"Maker take you!" she exclaimed, her frustration overwhelming. She threw the chisel against the workbench and gripped the shield until her knuckles were bleached of color.

Blackwall intervened before she could tear the shield in half, wrestling it from her grasp and holding it an arm's length away. He examined it with an appreciative eye, as if he were looking at a quality piece of woodwork and not a lopsided rectangle. "It has a kind of charm to it, doesn't it, looking like this?"

Despite her frustration, she laughed. "No one would want to hang it for anyone to see, no matter how much charm it has."

"You can't teach charm, only symmetry." He looked a moment longer, his eyes roving between the four corners. She could see a course of action unfolding in his head, his lips opening and closing around soundless words as he marked where to carve next, what to fix. Satisfied, he placed it down next to her elbow.

"Blackwall, I think we have reached the limit of my wood working charm." She bent over the table, folding her arms in front of her to cradle her face in the crook of an elbow.

Over the past three nights all she had managed to do was embarrass herself by displaying how inept she was at anything that wasn't stabbing related. Twice she had cut herself and she had even managed to break a chisel. The night was ever closer to unfolding in a similar pattern. At this rate, she would have to give the shield to Cullen if only to avoid admitting that her shoddy work had actually been intended for the master craftsman himself.

"But we're just getting to the fun part!"

She rolled her head to the side, peeking over her arm to glower at the shield. "What would the fun part be?"

Blackwall ignored her, his attention diverted to picking out the right tool. They all looked the same to her, flat with sharp edges of varying widths, but he had assured her that they were very different. Multiple times he had tried to teach her the correct names and sizes before giving up and letting her call them what she wished.

"Now," he finally said, directing his attention back to her, "we get to add the finger work with the rib-gouger." He grinned and held up one of the thinner chisels, the one she had commented as being ideal for shoving between a man's ribs.

She raised herself onto her elbows, her back arched between shoulders and hips. "I don't think I have the fingers for that." She flattened her hands, palms facing down, and drummed her fingers against the wood to draw attention to them.

When she had been with the Valo-kas - what seemed like a life time ago now - she had broken a finger and it had healed as a knot of scar tissue where the bone had protruded just above the knuckle. Every time she looked at the grey, shiny scar she remembered the cold, being soaked to the bone from rain that lashed against her face, squeezing her crushed hand between her thighs to staunch the bleeding.

"Uh, nonsense, you have the right look about you."

It wasn't his words that caught her attention, as strange as they were, but his tone. Away from the formality that surrounded the others, they had been loud, speaking to each other as friends do with rowdy enthusiasm. But now he spoke as if just for her, his words coming out soft as velvet, almost as an afterthought to what brewed beneath the surface.

She couldn't bring herself to look over though she felt his gaze, a tingle scorching down her spine and spreading a fire in her lower stomach and thighs. The barn suddenly felt small and stuffy. The distance between their bodies not as great as it had seemed only moments before. Herah could smell the hay that was packed in bales in the rafters above them, could taste the musk against her lips.

Counting each breath as it was pushed from her lungs she stood, her shoulders rolled back and her head held as if she balanced a crown of gems and not of horns.

"What sort of look would that be, Warden Blackwall?" It was easy to keep her voice light, to match her tone to his. There was a buoyancy that was bubbling in her chest, the airy feeling softening her approach.

He fumbled for words, the chisel held limply by his side. "What I meant was that you'll do fine, this is where the charm comes in." He coughed, a fist knocking against his chest as he looked away from her. Was he blushing or was it just the fire light dancing across his face, casting his forehead and nose in ruddy glow?

She laughed, the sound a husky thrum in her throat, and rested her hip against the workbench. "Yes, you keep mentioning this charm. Will you tell me more? How might this _charm_ serve?"

"Apologies, my lady. I have offended you." It was easy to see that he was blushing now, the heat that spread to his ears burning hotter than the fire. His eyes found purchase on something just over her shoulder.

The distance would have been easy to close with only a few steps, but she enjoyed the way his focus shifted as she took her time approaching him, the space between their bodies disappearing. One hand trailed across the workbench, her fingertips becoming dusted with wood shavings.

Pausing a breath away, she stopped to bask in the warmth that flowed through her as his eyes raked up and down her length. When his eyes finally found hers, his head tipped back, they were hazy, nearly pitch black except where the flame from the fire was reflected.

"I… I seem to be missing something." Tentatively, his movements exaggerated in their slowness, he placed the chisel back on the workbench then slid his hand towards her. His hand found hers, the calloused pads of his fingers brushing over knuckles.

As answer she turned away from him, her hand slipping out from under hers as she reached for the forgotten shield.

"You're missing this." She held it out to him, her chin dipping low to hide the flush of pink that colored her cheeks. "I made you a rectangle."

"A target shield," he corrected gruffly. He looked at the shield with a new light in his eyes, turning it over in his hands, fingers following the curves of the corners. "You were making this for me?"

She nodded, the stream of words that had come so easily running dry as he looked up at her.

"Hmph." His arms wrapped around the shield, hugging it close to his chest. The front of his jerkin was dusted with curly wood shavings, caught in the fabric. "If I had known that, I would have asked for a stool. I'm tired of sitting on a block of wood." Gravely, his tone unimpressed, the apple cheeked smile betrayed his true feelings.

"You're _insufferable_."

He nodded once, his smile wide enough now to show off his white teeth. "So I've been told. Madame de Fer makes note of it often."

Herah was wavering in resolution, the heady rush ossifying from molten liquid in her belly to a stoney hardness that made it difficult to swallow. She pushed herself to take the final step towards him, filling the space completely, the shield a solid pressure against her chest.

"I believe you were about to tell me about my charm. Unless you had another lesson in mind… something about finger work?" She trailed her fingers down the wooden barrier pressed between them as she spoke, ending with a brush against the front of his breeches.

There was a loud clatter as tools scattered, knocked aside or to the ground as the shield landed on the workbench with a loud _thump._

 _"_ You threw your rectangle!" she protested.

"Shield," he corrected. His lips twitched, tugged briefly into a smile before dipping into a grimace. Even as he pulled her into him, his hands digging into her hips, his demeanor became serious.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Why do you say that?" She tried to keep her tone playful, but she could feel herself shrinking on the inside, vulnerability overwhelming her candor.

"I could never be what you deserve." He seemed at odd with his words, unsure even as he spoke them. Rough, eager hands slid under her tunic, fingers curling into the waistband of her leggings.

Their mouths met, a hungry collision as their bodies pressed together. The doubts that had laden his words died on his lips, her tongue brushing them away.

"You will regret this, my lady," he whispered, the words trembling against her lips.

"I will be the judge of that. Stop talking, we can find a better use for your mouth."

There were no more need for words after that and so he happily obliged.


End file.
